Dr. Nathan Wall With Thriving Family Chiropractic Comes and Hangs Out With Us to Talk About the Body’s Stress Response
Listen to the podcast here.
Eva:
Hi, this is The Pure Living Family Podcast. I'm Eva. My little brother's Theo, and my mom and dad are Shawn and Angela.
Shawn:
Hey guys. Welcome back to The Pure Living Family Podcast. Today, we have a special guest with us, Dr. Nathan Wall. If you haven't heard of him and Thriving Family Chiropractic, that's who we've been seeing with Theo. And I've been seeing him since the car accident in December. So welcome to the podcast, Dr. Wall.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Thank You. Thank you for having me.
Angela:
It's weird to hear Dr. Wall, cause I call him Dr. Nathan.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
It is weird.
Shawn:
I think that might have been the first time I've ever said that. We'll roll with it, I guess.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
That's fine.
Shawn:
Dr. Nathan has become pretty close with our family. I've visited him many times for a while. We were going to the chiropractor three times a week after the car accident. I consider him a good friend. I think, I surprise him every time I come in with different subjects. [crosstalk 00:01:23] There's been occasions that I've dropped some bombs on him and then he's got to see someone right after, but he's been a good sport.
Angela:
What kind of bombs? What are you talking about?
Shawn:
I mean, conspiracy theories that were accused of having all the time or guns or owning guns or something. I don't know.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
I'm good at guns.
Shawn:
Do you remember, do you recall any of the bombs I've dropped on you?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
I don't know. We've talked a lot, about a lot of things.
Angela:
I think you get a lot of your patients though, that-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Angela:
...Talk to you-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yes.
Angela:
So okay, let's start from the beginning. We started seeing Dr. Nathan about, I think, July, August 2019. My friend [Marisa 00:02:02], shout out to Marisa. She's a autism mom and she had been seeing Dr. Nathan for her daughter, [Lila 00:02:11] and we went swimming the beginning of the summer and I was noticing how well Lila was doing. And I was like, "What have you guys been doing? Is this stem cells?", because they been before that and she's like, "No, I think this is all chiro." And I was like, "Wait, what chiro is doing this?" and so she's like, "Yeah, I'll set up a meeting with you to meet up with him."
Angela:
And we met and it just, I came home and I talked to Shawn and he was like, I have to give Sean credit, he's very proactive about acting on intuition. And he was like, "I feel so good about it." I was like, well, "I feel good about it too." So we're all in. So, Theo was seeing Dr. Nathan. We first started out with three times a week, probably for a long time, I think, because Theo was in pretty bad shape, right?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yes. It was many months, we were at three times a week.
Angela:
Yeah.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
I can't remember how many, but we were rock and roll there for a while.
Angela:
So tell everyone what you specialize in at your practice.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah, so obviously I'm my chiropractor. But the hard part with that is a lot of people, when they hear that word, they think of bones snapping, neck cracking, headache taking care of, back pain doctor. But in all reality, we don't really do any of that. If chiropractic is practiced appropriately, essentially we're in charge of making sure the neurology is working and engaging and communicating very, very well. And so we live our whole entire life through our nervous system. And so as a pediatric and perinatal chiropractor and one who's very neuro specific, that's essentially what I do all day, is making sure that kiddos are connected between their brain and their body and that they're connected between their brain, body and their environment more. So we have to understand that if our brain and our body are communicating well, then our whole body will function more appropriately. And that's the essence behind chiropractic.
Shawn:
Well, we were just talking as we got started tonight in the conversation, that we were looking at your, Theo's stress response-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
...Is his-
Angela:
His first scans.
Shawn:
...his first scans.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Angela:
So what kind of scans do you do?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yes. So we run, all of our patients have to go through a year out of different testing and some of those are some neurological testing. Some, we utilize a thermography, EMG or electromyography and then HRV as well, so heart rate variability. So essentially what we're looking at is the patterns, we're looking at the balance of the neurology growth, at what the brain is perceiving essentially because what the brain perceives is exactly what and how we're going to react to our environment. So we look at Theo's original scans. There was a lot of chaos, essentially. There was what we call a lot of stress response, right?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
So the nervous system when it's not functioning well, it enters into a state of stress response and this is not like an emotion, it's more of a neurological stress. So we measured that and remembering back Theo was off the charts, as are a lot of my sensory, autism and spectrum kiddos are. So our EMG, we wanted to be about a hundred, essentially a hundred percent of the neurology working and engaging well and Theo was well over a thousand. So we were pumping 10 times the amount of stress response essentially and that was not what we wanted to see with his body, because that means he's running in that state of stress. That's how he's living his life in that state of stress, which then correlates to every other function.
Angela:
And do you see, I mean, Theo scans were pretty crazy, off the chart, but you see that quite often with kids like Theo?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah, without a doubt. I think in the sensory world, the hard part is, yes, he was off the charts and, but the sensory, if we understand what sensory is, it's the inability for you to adapt to your environment appropriately because your nervous system is in a state of stress or is over sensitive, right? So of course we're going to see those big high numbers in those kiddos because that's exactly what their nervous system is doing. It's pumping too much stress response. Now he was definitely at the higher end, for sure, of where we see kiddos. Eight, six to 800 is common, for sure in those kiddos, but a thousand was up there, for sure.
Shawn:
Well, and it's been fun to, for me to learn more. Just going to your office, you learn a lot about the autonomic nervous system breaking down into two parts and I think it's important to, maybe talk about this. So just from my simplistic perspective, you have the sympathetic-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Sure.
Shawn:
...The fight or flight sensor or nervous system-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Shawn:
...And then you have the parasympathetic nervous-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Right.
Shawn:
...System, which is more of the rest restore
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
Recover sensory or nervous system. So-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
...It's been really interesting to learn as we've gone, had treatment with Theo, so what we're talking about, his nervous system was always in the sympathetic.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
So a lot of our focus, was in the beginning, to how can we activate parasympathetic, right?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah, without a doubt. In our practice, we refer to that as a gas pedal and brake pedal, only because no one wants to hear sympathetic and parasympathetic a thousand times, right, nor do I want to say those words over and over again. But with that being said, so that gas pedal, fight, flight or freeze response, this is where a lot of kiddos come in, unfortunately and they are pumping that stress response. And then we want that break pedal, right. That resting, relaxing, digesting immune system and drainage side, right, our health and our healing and our growth side.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
So think about the kid in the spectrum, right? Of course, we want him healthy. We want him healing. Right. And we want them growing. Growing, not just physically. People think when I say that, I mean growing, I mean growing neurologically, growing physiologically. So if we're not in that phase, then we're stuck in the fight, flight and freeze. Cause you can't be involved at the same time. Well you are in, you can't have both at the highest levels at the same time. One's always going to outdo the other essentially. Right.
Shawn:
Yeah.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
And so we want to essentially have the brake pedal or that parasympathetic response. That's the system that should be engaging 99% of our day, essentially. And it's not in a lot kiddos.
Shawn:
Well, and it's interesting to think about, even in the sympathetic nervous system, there's certain bodily organs-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
...That are heightened, that are jump started, when you're-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Sure.
Shawn:
...In the sympathetic and same thing when you're in the parasympathetic.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
So if you are in this sympathetic, then those organs that only function in the rest, recovery, restore, they're not functioning because they can never engage. Correct?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. You're right. So certain things turn on and certain things turn off when you're running away from of a bear, right? So if, that's the way to think about it, is if I'm running away from a bear, I'm going to run by adrenaline, by cortisol, by epinephrine, all these stress hormones are going to be popping, right. I'm going to get that. My, sensory's going to be heightened, right, cause I'm trying to take everything in, all at once. So not a shocker that we see sensory kiddos with a heightened stress response, right. So, but that's going to shut down my digestion, right? Because I don't need to digest when I'm running away from a bear. It's the last thing I do. I don't need a good immune system when I'm running away from a bear, I need my body to be ready to fight.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Now that also means the blood is shoved in, too. So, that's something to understand when we talk about kids with autism. So the blood is being shoved to the specific areas of the body. Blood brings with it growth, right? And that's our health and healing and our growth side, as well. But it's also shoved, and not just in the body, but it's shoved in the brain. So when we talk about kids with autism, that blood, it gets shunted from the prefrontal cortex to the hind brain during the stress response. So that means, if this kid has been experiencing the stress response, say let's, day one of their life, where's the growth happening? Where's that nutrient response going? Is it going to the prefrontal cortex? No, it's going to the hind brain, primitive reflexes, all of that. So we see these kids sometimes come in and they're, they're strong, right? They're really good at physical things, but that prefrontal cortex is shut down. So, social aspects has shut down, the ability to communicate and react and respond appropriately is shut down.
Shawn:
So, Theo's basically been running from a bear-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
...For the majority-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Physiologically.
Shawn:
Yeah,
Dr. Nathan Wall:
For sure.
Shawn:
For the majority of his life. And I thought a comparison, that was very interesting, and my, to me was Dr. Zach Bush, when Angela was doing the fasting and she might talk about that later on, but she's done a couple of fasts where it was like a week long, fast. And Dr. Bush in his videos talked about how day three, day four, you feel like your sensory overload.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Shawn:
And he compared that to kids in the, on the sensory spectrum.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
So that, if you want to get any sort of empathy or feel what they're feeling-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
...Fast for three, four days.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
And your body that's when everything, you're much more irritable.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Sure.
Shawn:
Your emotions are a lot heightened and that's what these kids, these sensory kids are dealing with.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
So gives perspective of why they would throw their tantrums and.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
They're hangry.
Shawn:
Nonstop.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
Yeah.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Without a doubt. Yeah. There's so many different things in our lives that can push us over that edge. And if we can experience those and kind of relate back to our kiddos with sensory issues, that's fantastic. I love that comparison.
Shawn:
Did you feel that way, when you fasted?
Angela:
Well, I feel we already know, I have some auditory processing issues, too many sounds and I start freaking out, but it was like that times 10 and yeah, it was the last few times I've done the fast, day three and four, I feel that way, for sure. But it just, it makes me have a lot more patience and sympathy for kids like Theo. And I think that a lot of people try so hard to change our kids in that type of situation, where really we need to change the environment or remove them from the environment to help calm them because that's what I had to do for myself. So
Shawn:
I think that's a great point because aunts and uncles or grandparents that aren't around the kids all the time, they might think like, oh, just, he needs some discipline and maybe the parents aren't doing a good job. Maybe, take this perspective into consideration of the kid can, physiologically, he cannot change his reaction. I think that's a point we need to make.
Angela:
Yeah. That's so true! So back to Dr. Nathan, I know that I get a lot of messages on Instagram with parents that will say, "Oh, I can't do chiro because there's no way my child will lay down and participate." And I thought, for sure, oh my gosh, I don't know what this is going to be like for Theo. I mean, even the scans, you just adapt so well, Dr. Nathan's like a ninja. You just, he's so quick with them too. And so what do you always tell parents to help them?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. I mean, first I think it's personal for the provider. You have to find the right provider, who's going to have the ability to do that and want to do that and the patience to work with kiddos and I think it comes from passion. Now, if you're passionate, what you do, you're going to find the ability to work with the kiddos. So, you've got to find the right provider and then I always tell parents, "I've only, in almost 10 years of doing this, I've only had one kid not being able to get chiropractic care, due to just not being able to be touched and not being able to go through the process."
Angela:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Nathan Wall:
That was a 13 year old with anxiety, but really mom wasn't on my side.
Angela:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Mom was just always offering the door out, almost telling her to go, you don't have to do this. You don't. I'm like, "Well, this is never going to work."
Angela:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Nathan Wall:
But when we talk about like your average sensory kiddo, yeah, it can be challenging. I've spent 45 to 55 minutes trying to get an adjustment with a kiddo before. That doesn't mean I'm hovering over that kid for 45 to 55 minutes and waiting for him. We're going to come back, we're going to see how they're doing, we're going to entertain them, we're going to come back, we're going to do many different things for those kiddos.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Scans can be hard because there's a lot of touch and if it's a light touch that they're really sensitive to, we do a lot of light touch in the scans. Nothing is that hard. So that can be a difficult situation. But I think parents need to know if they're with the right provider and the provider is trained that, man, we've seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kiddos and we've never had a case that we haven't been able to take care of, due to the issues of sensory or autism and their challenges when it comes to that.
Angela:
What I tell parents is, it took Theo a long time. It took like probably like 30 adjustments-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Angela:
...Before he was like, "Okay, fine. I'm not going to fight you on this." You know?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Angela:
And now he's just so relaxed, hops up in the, on the table and is like, "Okay, move me."
Dr. Nathan Wall:
He does. It's pretty [crosstalk 00:14:40].
Shawn:
And, I mean, even the picture, the recent picture of him-
Angela:
Oh, yeah!
Shawn:
...Giving you a little kiss on the cheek-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Angela:
He gives Dr. Nathan hugs and kisses and-
Shawn:
They're best buddies, they're homies.
Angela:
For sure. Because he knows that Dr. Nathan makes him feel better.
Shawn:
Yeah.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah, he does well.
Shawn:
And I think that's a good point to bring up, because we did see his mood and his ability to withstand tough emotions, improve.
Angela:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:15:05] Within that first few months, for sure.
Shawn:
Oh, yeah. That was the first big result we saw from chiropractic.
Angela:
And just his awareness and just being around a large group of people, didn't seem to bother him as much anymore. That's one of the biggest things we saw in the beginning with chiro.
Shawn:
A hundred percent.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
So essentially what you're talking about is adapting. Right? So-
Angela:
For sure.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
So that's life, that's health. If we're adapting to our environment, we're doing well and that's on many different fronts, but for a sensory kiddo, adaptation is extremely hard. There could be many different environments that they face every day, where that becomes difficult. But again, all that information is processed through the neurology. So if the neurology's bogged down with that stress response at a thousand or whatever number we're at, then it's going to be really difficult for that kiddo to adapt. So you're going to see those outburst, you're going to see all that. But now, when we start seeing a kiddo start to recover and gain that connection between that brain and that body and that environment, adaptability goes through the roof. So then you start seeing environments not affecting this much. So we can do X, Y, Z, because they're better adapting to those now. We don't always have to change the external, if we can get the body to then adapt essentially.
Shawn:
When I, I think that's the interesting point in thinking back at his progress, because we obviously had a great progress from the beginning when his scans were a thousand plus, it slowly started coming down. We got to a point where we felt we wanted to do a little bit more, so we did the FMT and, I don't know, Dr. Nathan, you tell us from your perspective, what you saw before we did that and after we did FMT?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. Good point. So I think before we did that and we were doing well, everything was moving in the right direction. But I think we had, I don't want to say plateaued out, but we had just, he's done well, he did good. And then FMT came in and then I think that kind of boosted him more in the right direction. Right. Cleared up the gap more, as we're all aware of that brain gap connection is absolutely huge. So if we can have a better gap function at that point, less inflammation, all those responses, we're going to see that jump in that right direction. I think we saw that with them.
Shawn:
Well, I think everyone needs to [inaudible 00:17:23] listen to this part because we talked about it in our last podcast of finding providers that are collaborative. And Dr. Nathan, is a perfect example of that, of rolling with us as we provide different treatment protocols and just-
Angela:
Whether it's diet or seeing a new PANDAS doctor or FMT, he's always been very supportive. And that's what I love about Dr. Nathan and anyone on Theo's team that's open-minded and just willing to be a sounding board because they all have great things to offer. And that's why they're part of Theo's team. So yeah. Make sure your provider is willing. I mean, I guess it has a lot to do with ego too, like no ego, right?
Shawn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah.
Shawn:
Well, and even our conversations, I love throwing ideas off-
Angela:
Yeah.
Shawn:
...The wall in his office about life in general. That's why I feel Dr. Nathan's been, become a good friend of ours, but I think that's important as long as the provider has no ego and allows you to express your simplistic perspective, because I'm not a doctor, I'm not a chiropractor. So your patience with me and asking a bunch of questions has always been very much appreciated as well.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. I think it's important for a healthcare provider to be open and to be willing to answer questions and also be willing to understand that we don't know everything and that's okay to not know everything. If someone's going expecting the provider to know everything, you're probably going to get someone with a really big ego and you'll probably fit well with him for a moment. And then you'll find out that it's not such a good fit because really it's their ego and that their knowledge that's driving.
Angela:
For sure. One thing I wanted to talk to you about Dr. Nathan, was when I first sat down with you, you told me, "A lot of chiropractors, they sell supplements. They have all these things in their office and I'm not that way." So explain to our followers, why you don't do, sell all the supplements?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. It's a good question. I get this question at least a couple times a day. In fact, I just-
Angela:
Really!
Dr. Nathan Wall:
...Yeah, that's probably the last question I had in my office today, actually. So it was a mom questioning this. We're not anti-supplement in our office, by any means, right. We provide a couple different supplements for patients, but we encourage people to be on supplements if needed. But it's not our lane essentially. There's a, my license allows me to do a myriad different things, as a chiropractor. I could do a lot of, there's a guy in Salt Lake who does foot Baths, he is a chiropractor, right. Which is great. I mean, if you want to do detoxing foot baths, great, just don't call it chiropractic and don't confuse it with what chiropractic is essentially, right. There's already a lot of misconception of what chiropractic is.
Angela:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Nathan Wall:
I don't think we need to be adding more and more and more. Nutrition is important. We understand that as, as a chiropractor, we look at emotional, physical and chemical stressors. So we understand that nutrition is very important, in that aspect. But I really, I hold true to, man, chiropractic was designed and specifically here in order to allow for that neurology to be expressed appropriately. And if I open myself up to all these different modalities and all these different things that we can do into the practice, then I just become mediocre at a hundred different things. And I'd rather be really excellent at one thing, which is chiropractic, allowing for that neurology to be expressed. Again, that doesn't downplay any other modality or any of the treatment or any other care that other provider provides. It's just what we're really good at and we're really specific at, is allowing for that neurology to work well.
Angela:
That's amazing. I've had a lot of friends and follower friends that have come into your practice and they all have different reasons why they're wanting to come see you, but I've never had one person message me later and say, "Oh, it didn't work for me."-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
That's good.
Angela:
What do you feel like? Well-
Shawn:
That's what we want, right?
Angela:
...For sure. But how, I mean, obviously we want everyone in the surrounding areas where we live, so Dr. Nathan has Thriving Families Chiropractic in Draper, Utah. If you're local, I mean, we even, you have people that drive a while to see you, right?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. Yeah. Because we're so specific in the niche that we do and see these kiddos and are really good results with them. It drives people from many, yeah, we see people all the way, a couple hours north, a couple hours south.
Angela:
Wow. So if you're local, you definitely needed to stop by and see Dr. Nathan. But how do followers find someone like you?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
That's a really good question. And there's, we are, just as of two weeks ago, a really good group I'm a part of called, we're a group of pediatric neuro specific chiropractors work with kiddos like this, pretty specifically, and there is a, what's the word I want to look for here, there's a-
Angela:
You guys are specialized?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. But I'm trying to think of, they've created a website, as such, where you can go and search for a doctor.
Angela:
Okay.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
I don't have the exact website right now.
Angela:
We can link it.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. We can totally link it, we can put it in there, but yeah, it, this was just created like two weeks ago and just launched a week ago.
Shawn:
Like affiliate program, or
Dr. Nathan Wall:
It's not like an, it's an affiliates, but we're not affiliate with anything besides just the training that we have essentially.
Shawn:
Interesting.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
I can't think of the word I want to use for it, but yeah, it's a place where you go in type your address and type your zip code and it's going to come up with doctors in your area.
Angela:
Oh, cool.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. More or less. So that's, it's going to be awesome and we're adding new doctors every day. I think there's probably going to be a thousand, 1500 doctors on there, nationwide.
Shawn:
So how are you deciding what doctors will be on there?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
So it's not myself that's doing it. It's actually my mentor, Dr. Tony. Ebel, out of Crystal Lake, Illinois. Who's ran, I mean, he's probably the top notch, pediatric chiropractor, especially when it comes to kiddos with neurodevelopmental disorders, for sure. So he's running this program and he's fantastic at what he does. And his whole mission is to get it out there, get parents the knowledge, get them the opportunity to seek providers like us. So this has been a really big step in the right direction for us.
Shawn:
That's awesome.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah. We're super excited about the website launching.
Angela:
That's awesome. Well, one thing I also love about you, is you take some time to talk to the community and you hold certain classes. Will you tell us about what kind of classes you have?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah, so we concentrate on two classes specifically, because it's the most, they're the most wanted classes. Our main one is called the neuro storm. So the neuro storm really focuses on kiddos with ADHD, sensory processing, autism, anxiety and depression. And really, the neuro storm is showing parents the pathway to how our kiddos have ended up like this, unfortunately. And then we started to guide them through the process of understanding what their neurology is doing and their physiology's doing, essentially everything we're talking about today, but in a two hour format. So you can be really kind of aware of what's happening and with that class.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
And then another class we do is a class on vaccines. I call it a vaccination class, but it's really like a neuro immunology class. My opinion on vaccines, is parents need to be informed with it, not just informed on the bad and the good, but informed in how a vaccine interacts with the nervous system, how it interacts with the immune system and then what are the potential effects of that? Both good and bad. If we inject something into a kiddo or adult, essentially. So it's a really good class that we teach there.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
And another one that we're hopefully dropping pretty soon is going to be our postpartum depletion class.
Angela:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Where we talk a lot about moms who are just essentially depleted. I see a lot of moms with anxiety and depression. So what's happening is they're going from pregnancy to pregnancy or they're going into their first pregnancy already depleted and then their pregnancy now depletes them, breastfeeding depletes them. We look at depletion on a nutritional aspect, as a neurological aspect and a social aspect. And we talk about how we need to regain that and to have more balance with that, in order to avoid these PPA, PPD diagnosis's that are so rampant and then sticking moms on these anti-
Angela:
Mm-mm (negative).
Dr. Nathan Wall:
...anxiety, anti-depressant drugs. So, so heavily, essentially.
Angela:
That's really interesting. I just sent my pregnant sister-in-law to you, so-
Dr. Nathan Wall:
That's right. Yeah.
Angela:
You see a lot of, well, you specialize in it, but women who are pregnant.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yes.
Angela:
I was going to ask you something. You have any questions for him?
Shawn:
Well, while she thinks of that question, any thoughts that you feel you would like to express. Knowing our community is mainly special needs parents across the globe, any thoughts that you would want to share?
Dr. Nathan Wall:
For sure. I think what I always want to get across is, and like I said, I've lived in this world, really all day for the last, almost 10 years now and I understand that from the initial onset, from the initial diagnosis, it becomes, it becomes scary, it becomes a whirlwind and a lot of times, a lot of parents are just handed essentially a pamphlet. And they're saying, "Here you go, figure this out." There's not, there is help. There is, but there's not a lot of help in the mainstream medical model. And so I think one thing I'd want parents to know is there is hope, for sure. I mean, if you look in the right places, kids lives are being changed. If you look in the right places, parents are starting to understand that we can get through a lot of these difficulties and a lot of these neurodevelopmental challenges, if we're doing the right things and moving in the right direction.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
And so again, I just think establishing the fact that, to not lose hope and to keep moving forward into, try as many things as possible, right. Chiropractic's not an end all, be all, cure all, by any means. If anybody's selling that, run away. Of course, it establishes a proper neurology and kiddos need that and whether we're developmental or not. But there's so many different, awesome modalities today, and there's so many different awesome therapies that kids can get involved in, to, as we talked about FMT, there's obviously OT, PT, speech, all these really, really good therapies. But I think if you're struggling, which I think every parent with a special needs kiddo like that, and your developmental kiddo is going to go through those phases, just don't give up hope. That's what I would say, for sure.
Angela:
[crosstalk 00:27:57] And you've given us so much hope. And I think it's so evident, just when we go into your office, just the energy and the love that you have for your patients and your clients is just, I mean, I'm sure you have moms breakdown to you all day long because we go in there and we're just-
Shawn:
And dads.
Angela:
Yeah.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Angela:
...fix our child because we just feel that safeness and just hopefulness with you, that we just unload on you. So, sorry.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
That's Okay. I've done it forever and I enjoy the connection and the ability to establish that hope. [inaudible 00:28:31] a group of chiropractors, we talk about as being hope dealers.
Angela:
You guys are hope dealers.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Well, you have to be and I think if you're providing the help, you're providing the hope too.
Angela:
We so appreciate you and thank you so much for being here with us too.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
Yeah, for sure.
Shawn:
And we're sorry for any of the craziness that our family has provided to you.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
No craziness. It's all good.
Shawn:
Well, thank you for joining us for this podcast.
Angela:
We'll have to have you on again.
Shawn:
Yeah.
Angela:
We'll have some specific topics.
Dr. Nathan Wall:
We can do it.
Shawn:
Thanks for joining us. Make sure you join us next week. Have a great one, out. See ya.
Eva:
Hi. This is The Pure Living Family Podcast. I'm Eva. My little brother's Theo, and my mom and dad are Shawn and Angela.